Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.

I was walking home, and I met a student of mine from the university,

and he just came up to me and said, you'll never believe what's going on.

Have you seen the television?

And I said, no, I haven't.

And he said, they've said that the Berlin walls come down, but they're letting everybody through.

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Alastair took up a teaching post in Haller, East Germany in August 1989, and continue to work in

Haller for the next nine years, seeing the unraveling of the GDR firsthand.

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So back to today's episode, Alastair arrived just in time to see the early protests

and the opening of the border with West Germany.

He recounts the vendor with some great stories detailing the impact of the vendor and the

effects of reunification. We welcome Alastair to our Cold War conversation.

And then a friend of mine also studying French and German, Kathy, came up to me one day

just after finals and said, oh, I've just seen a notice on the notice board.

And it says they're looking for English teachers.

They called them lectors in those days.

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